This too – I love to read a book that leaves me sobbing, or gasping with the drama, or pondering – that’s ‘proper’ escapism. And it’s gives me good mind ‘fodder’ for the long quiet hours working in the library ;)

I am quite simple, I mostly read for the joy of story. What is being told and how it is being told. For me it’s not just about what happens in the story, it is also very much about how the author chooses to convey this story to me. How does he or she tell it? I have put many books down, and from much lauded authors, because their story-telling skills (whatever that term covers, but getting into that would be a more lengthy comment) were lacking.

I guess that’s just a slightly different take on the “I read for enjoyment” line. Though, why I read changes ever so subtly whith each time I pick up a book, just like it does with movies, art etc. Sometimes I want to loose myself in pretty words, sometimes I want to escape into story and sometimes I want to weave in and out of intricate linguistic architectures.

*shrug*

… but mainly I’m about the storytelling.

Aside from that, you and I have often discussed how we interact with books and why we read. You like to disappear into a plot – do you also like to imagine you are a character in the book and derive pleasure from living that someone else’s “life” for a few hours, I wonder? I’m not dissing you (or anybody) but I do wonder sometimes how I’d go about ‘reading for the plot’.

I think my main issue lies with the idea of “enjoyment”. No. One of my main issues. The term is problematic (to me).

Another issue (which I think I mentioned above) is the very act of reading. I’m one of those people who are *hyper-aware* that they are reading. When I am reading I take great interest in looking at how I am interacting with the book and how the books interacts with me (much greater interest than I take in the plot, actually). It is a sort of meta-situating myself as a reader and the book as a medium, I suppose.

Aghr. I’m being imprecise here and it bothers me.